By Ed Tittel, Wilson Learning

Almost every salesperson I know hates prospecting. It’s understandable—they spend hours calling people who aren’t interested, and waste a lot of time and energy on too many “No’s” before finding the few who will say “Yes.” No wonder prospecting is viewed as a necessary evil—something that has to be done if you want to keep the pipeline full and develop new business.

Yet, some experienced professionals manage to get appointments with most of the prospects they contact, and they’re able to turn a big percentage of those meetings into sales. How do they do it?

There are two parts to the answer. The first part is this: Instead of playing a numbers game, they ask, “Which companies are most likely to be good for us?” With this question in mind, they filter their initial list of “suspects” to create a short list of the most likely prospects. Now they can make earlier go/no-go decisions and invest their time in a smaller group of companies most likely to offer good business opportunities.

Here’s how it can work for you:

Instead of making an indiscriminate list of every company in your territory, develop a profile describing the characteristics of your “ideal” customer. Use the profile as a guide to do some up-front research on your possible prospecting candidates.

For example, you might be looking for evidence that a company...

•    Matches your economic and strategic priorities
•    Has the right level of profitability and fits your industry/market segment requirements
•    Has healthy annual sales/net income
•    Is the right size and has the right number of employees
•    Has the budget and ability to spend for what you sell

Once these questions have been answered, you can sort out the list of suspects and cross off the ones that don’t meet the criterion of “good for us.” What’s left will become your targeted list of potential prospects.

Using this list could actually make prospecting a positive experience, leading to more satisfying calls, more sales, and increased revenues.

The second part of making your prospecting effort more effective involves trying to determine, “Who are you good for?” from within your list of Strong Suspects.  Experienced prospectors know that there needs to be evidence of obvious mutual benefit in a potential sales relationship in order to make the effort worthwhile.

Here’s how it might work for you…

Instead of launching yourself into high risk, high cost access and selling activities with half-qualified suspects, stop, and consider how you might be able to help this client before you make first contact.

In order to do this, you first need to have a good sense of the value of your offering to clients in general. Start by considering:

•    What business problems do you typically solve for customers?
•    What can customers do because of your offering that they could not do before?
•    What do you typically help customers improve, increase or decrease?

Armed with a sense of your own offering’s value, you now need to ask, “Do any of my Strong Suspects want or need what I have to offer?” Searching for “What’s most important to these suspects right now?” will help you answer this question.  Go back to your research and look for your Suspect’s current goals, objectives, critical success factors or market place challenges.

When you find an obvious link between what they need and what you have to offer, you earn the right to promote your Strong Suspect to a Good Prospect.  In addition, with the link, you will find the foundation for a strong access message and eventually a strong foundation for a sales relationship.